The impact of psychological trauma on the population is significant. Research suggests that as many as 60.7% of men and 51.2% of women in America have been exposed to at least one extreme stressor or traumatizing event during the course of their lives. For those that develop chronic reactions to the traumatic events the impact is considerable. Among those concerns are difficulties with attention. The scope of reported attentional problems are quite broad and can include both increased attention to potentially threatening cues in the environment, difficulty sustaining attention on target tasks, or disruption in usually integrated attentional processes. These different attentional problems have been roughly captured in the DSM-IV criteria as "hypervigilance", "difficulty concentrating", and "dissociation". In this proposal with intend to use event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neurophysiological correlates of attentional difficulties in traumatized individuals. Study Design: This study will occur over a three year period and will involve the participation of 80 members of the Vermont community with a history of trauma. All participants will undergo a thorough diagnostic evaluation to assess the extent of trauma and current psychopathology. The diagnostic evaluation will be followed by the psychophysiological evaluation which will take a multi-method approach to evaluate stimulus processing and utilize self-report measures, peripheral psychophysiological measures (HR and SC), and ERPs. Two ERP paradigms, (the novelty P300 and the contingent negative variation) that are particularly sensitive to attentional processes will be used to assess the neurophysiological correlates of attention. Objective: The overall objective of this proposal is take an innovative approach to investigate three factors that work from our lab has demonstrated are likely to be associated with attentional disturbances post-trauma; dissociation, potential threat, and distractibility. These factors have largely been ignored in the literature with respect to using psychophysiological approaches to understand attention in trauma survivors. Psychophysiological support for their role in the attentional processes post trauma would have significant clinical and scientific relevance. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Difficulties with attention and concentration are common among individuals who have experienced psychological trauma. This study will utilize psychophysiological techniques to investigate the factors associated with attentional disturbances in this population. Results of the study will have relevance to both the clinical treatment and scientific understanding of attentional difficulties in individuals with trauma related disorders. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]